File this under the “Just kinda cool” category. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is working on piezoelectric roads that generate electricity as cars drive over them. Using crystals the experimental road generates 400 kilowatts of power per hour. Not a lot but… I like the outside the box/herd thinking.
Combine this with the MIT City Car and a trolley like electricity system and we might have something. Perhaps a more realistic version of Minority Report-like Singapore MonicMRT or England’s Ultra.
Posted in Cleantech | 1 Comment »
Foreign dependence on oil is the triple threat: economic vulnerability, killing the planet, and inciting traditional, terrorist, and religious wars. We need a Manhattan Project slash Go to the Moon by the End of the Decade-like commitment to attack this problem. It’s gotten lip-service and the occasional ineffective government initiative for the past 40 years. We haven’t moved the dial at all. What we need is an aggressive yet realistic program to get energy independent. Now I’m not sure about the math or the pitfalls of the proposal but Andy Grove has an interesting article in the latest edition of McKinsey Quarterly. In it Mr. Grove makes a convincing, concise argument for retrofitting existing cars with batteries as the most practical and expedient method of getting us off our dependence on foreign oil. He makes some really interesting points:
- 80% of cars in the U.S. drive daily distances that wouldn’t make any use of gasoline in a hybrid engine,
- Replacing existing U.S. cars with new hybrids would take too long. If 10 auto makers did as good a job as Toyota in rolling out hybrids, in 10 years they would still only account for 5% of all cars on the road,
- The $10 billion cost of a pilot program is peanuts given everything else we are throwing money at,
- We’d have an opportunity to grow a strategic industry – battery technology
Again, I haven’t looked into the math so I’m taking Mr. Grove’s word for it. But it makes for an interesting discussion.
Battery technology versus alternative fuels is a really interesting dynamic in reducing our foreign oil habit. It’s similar to the disk storage versus high-bandwidth downloads for digital distribution. Storage improvements drive down the alternative cost of just-in-time delivery. In the case of cars, increasing battery technology will drive down costs across the board for powering cars even if batteries themselves aren’t employed widely. However, electric/battery-powered cars are inevitable as we move the technology forward. Witness the recent advance by a Korean research team in solving silicon degradation problems that prevent silicon from replacing graphite in batteries as an example of the progression. Battery technology, in cars and elsewhere, is not there just yet but it’s just a function of time.
Posted in Cleantech, Energy, Technology | Tagged Andy Grove, Batteries, Electric cars, McKinsey, Oil | 4 Comments »
A new browser was/is not at the top of my wish list. However I’m really enjoying Google Chrome. It’s only game-changing in the sense that Google’s search was game-changing when it came out. It doesn’t cook dinner or anything. It just works better, faster. Faster, however, is the main thing. It is just so much faster than IE, even Firefox. You don’t appreciate it until you try. Now IE seems painfully sluggish in comparison. It definitely makes surfing more pleasurable. It’s not a complete alternative to IE. Just like Firefox, Sharepoint breaks. Also a bunch of css/javascript-filled web sites haven’t been made compatible yet. Nothing major, just some annoying format glitchs from time-to-time. Assuming that over time the web developer community embraces it as a legitimate platform to include when coding, Chrome will probably be my default browser from now on. Which is surprising since I wasn’t looking for a new one.
Posted in Technology | Tagged Chrome, Google | 5 Comments »
The headline is obviously me being funny on a couple fronts. I don’t think it would be news to many people that Microsoft is no longer innovating – at least not outside of developer tools. I was just reading an article on cio.com Windows 7: The Five Most Talked-About Features. It was informative on a couple of fronts. First, I didn’t know “talked-about” was hyphenated. Second, more to the point, is that if these are the most talked-about features then it’s still been about 15 years since Microsoft has actually done anything interesting regarding operating systems. According to the article the five most interesting things Microsoft has spent millions developing in their latest OS include fixing a flawed security UI from the previous version, copying the way Mac does a few things, and adding touch-screen capabilities. Yes MSFT’s OS has gotten more modern but the last improvement they made that really made my life easier was multi-tasking. Touch-screen might be cool but that’ll depend on innovation coming from the ISV community. Someday Microsoft might surprise us with something that really helps us in our daily lives but I wouldn’t put any money on it.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
In a fire there is usually some either official or self-anointed person who tells people to please walk to the exits in an orderly fashion. This is usually required to counter that ever-present, panicky, over-caffeinated person who is screaming and running to the exit. This is the same person who manages to extract intense drama at back-to-school night. In the current crisis one of the very loud, panicked voices in the room is the media. It’s that announcer on NPR this morning that must have said the word “crash” 20 times in a five minute period. It’s the talking head comparing this to the Great Depression yet not really presenting any facts to counter the dramatic effect. They may not be technically wrong in what they’re spouting but it’s not helping. And it’s not fear for self preservation or good journalism that is driving it. It’s ratings and dollars. It’s the ad-driven infotainment industry that modern news organizations have become. So where is that calming voice that is imploring us to walk to the exits for our own good?
Normally it would be our President but we all know that is not going to work in this case. So in the absence of a singular leader we can turn to, how about if the Fed or some other organizing force created that calming voice? Where are the radio ads and commercials explaining the situation to Americans and the world? It won’t fix the problem of mortgage defaults. But it will at least potentially influence what has become the root problem, the psychology of the markets. In the past two weeks I haven’t heard a single government official on NPR that has been tasked with getting the message out that the government has an approach they think will work (of course that requires them to have one). Why not create a concerted media campaign to just calm people down. As part of that why not enlist the help of the media conglomerates. We all know that the patriarchs of these huge media conglomerates can influence the content on their properties. It would be a much bigger effort but not dissimilar to the networks agreeing to not broadcast election predictions until after all the polls have closed. Why not appeal to their civic obligations and enlist their help to be that calming voice alongside a well-orchestrated government campaign to do the same?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bernanke, economics, economy, Fed, markets, media, news | 2 Comments »
If you haven’t had a chance, check out Buffett interview on Charlie Rose. It was great to hear Warren’s views on subjects ranging from the “bailout” (Buffett prefers seeing it as an investment) to trade deficit to tax rates. Here are some of what I thought were highlights (in my PowerPoint grammar).
- “Economic Pearl Harbor”. $20 trillion real estate market dropped 20%, $4 trillion loss. Massive real estate bubble bursting.
- $40 billion in Treasuries just sold paying 1/20 of 1% in interest. Business/Americans want safety at any price. Buffett has never seen people so scared. [Clearly evidenced by GE deal.]
- Entire business community deleveraging simultaneously. If whole world is seller only U.S. government can serve as buyer. Has nearly unlimited access to capital, lowest possible cost of capital, and can stay in an investment for very long time.
- Would prefer quick, “good-enough” response to delayed perfect response. America is like great athlete that just had heart attack. EMS team shouldn’t argue over where to put stethoscope or blame patient.
- Would give Paulson blank check. “Trying to invest through 535 people [Congress] is tough job.”
- #1 issue is Treasury paying market prices for “investments” as it provides liquidity to economy. Thinks Congressional oversight should be focused on making sure Treasury pays market prices with $700 billion instead of overpaying.
- Believes mark-to-market should stay. You get in a lot of trouble when you start putting fictitious numbers in financial statements. Companies shouldn’t be afraid to tell the truth even if they think an asset is undervalued.
- Higher unemployment and inflation coming. $4 trillion loss just now starting to hit mainstream economy in terms of car and jewelry sales. Will get worse.
- As a country we spend $2 billion a day more than we earn. Are selling off pieces of our country to fund overspend. (He does an even better job describing this in another great Rose interview. We’ve used up our savings account and are now living off credit cards. Our children will have to service interest.)
- Supports Obama. Supports higher capital gains. Thinks lower tax for return on capital compared to tax on return on labor (income tax) is wrong. 20% of population trying to live on $21,000 a year. Push money to these people and they will spend it. More taxes should come from people like Buffett.
- Fed structured AIG deal very, very well. Drove tough terms. “I want to hire the guy that drove that deal. He’d fit in well at Berkshire.”
P.S. I also I really like Roger Ehrenberg’s comments on this as well.
Posted in Investing | Tagged Buffett, economics, Obama, Paulson | 8 Comments »
Part of me is jealous every time I see someone showing off their sleek Apple notebook or iPhone. They’re so sexy, svelt, and powerful. I’m like a kid who sees that bright red, yellow, and green box of candy. The mouth waters but the eating isn’t as fun as quenching the desire. Now I know Apple theologians will think me an uninformed heretical nut job. They are in love with their MacBooks and iPhones and I’m a just an envious nerd. On the surface they are right. But the 80% rational part of my brain doesn’t want an Apple for one overriding reason: it is a walled garden. The price for beauty, svelt, and power is confinement and I’m just not that psyched to get in, no matter how cool that piece of hardware might make me in the eyes of others.
Perfect example is Wired’s report on applications cast out of iPhonedom embracing Android. It is true Android is playing catch up/me too with iPhone. Apple has the market lead. Apple’s phone is cooler, thinner, sexier. On top of that it has a great application development environment open for anyone who wants to play. But it is also true that it is Apple’s sandbox, not the developers. Just like their hardware, unless your application fits with their world domination plan you’re not allowed in the sandbox. Take your toys and leave please. Now I know Google has its own world domination plan. Call me naive but world domination by Google versus world domination by Apple seems like democracy versus communism, respectively. Both want to rule the world. One just fits what I, the lowly developer, want from that world more than the other. 1984 anyone?
Posted in Technology | Tagged Android, Apple, Google, iPhone | 3 Comments »
When I first heard of Android I didn’t get it. Coming on the heels of iPod success it seemed like so many other Google attempts outside of search where entrenched competitors reign…not so successful. But in reading about Locale the light bulb went off. Locale is one of the winners of the $275k application contest Google had for Android applications. What they created was to ability for the phone to react programatically to one’s location. The simple case is your phone goes into vibrate mode if you’re in your favorite movie theater. But think about what Google is putting on the table – open programming environment, open location services, and an accelerometer. Now take Locale to its logical conclusion. What if you could wave your phone and your lights turned on. When you got near your girlfriends house it pinged her to let her know to get ready. Automatically pull up your Amazon wishlist when you walk into a bookstore. The mind boggles at the possibilities. I can see a whole hardware/software industry popping up around Android phones much like the games and physical accessories that popped up around the Wii. This could still turn out to be an also-ran attempt doomed to live in the iPhone’s shadow. But, what if this shakes up mobility and real-world interaction the way the Wii shook up game play.
Posted in Technology | Tagged Android, Google, mobile | 1 Comment »
A friend of mine recently said that cleantech is going to be bigger than the Internet. I’m always on the lookout for leading indicators, so that got my interest. Kleiner Perkins was the canary in the coal mine example my friend pointed to. They were recently profiled in Fortune magazine. They’ve moved completely into cleantech and away from the Internet. Having just raised $1.2 billion for “Green” investments. John Doerr thinks cleantech is a $6 trillion industry. Big bets by some really smart people. Bets that have been ramping for a while. I’ve been hearing about cleantech for some time but always thought of it as 10 years out. The Fortune article plus my friend’s vehemence however got me to take a quick look. What can we make of that statement “bigger than the Internet”? That’s a rather large statement. One leading indicator or at least baseline would be VC investment. According to a recent PwC and the NVCA report on Q2 ’08 VC investments, cleantech investing garnered $884 million in 65 deals while Internet investing was $1.5 billion on 238 deals. So Internet early-stage investing is alive and well and hasn’t been surpassed by cleantech yet. Though that doesn’t mean cleantech won’t be “bigger than the Internet” as this data point doesn’t really speak to velocity nor long-term opportunity. Interestingly, the two largest VC deals for the quarter were cleantech, $132 million and $115 million and cleantech has had the greatest growth as a sector in the past 5 years.
So how else could we gauge the potential? Realistically we won’t know for quite some time. But it’s clear that cleantech is on a tear and ripe for outside the herd potential. Course we’ll also see if it goes through the same bubble, bust, real-potential cycle.
|
|
Posted in Cleantech | Tagged alternative energy, Cleantech | 1 Comment »
Being mainstream is helpful in a lot areas. Being social, the clothes you wear, picking a plumber or a new camera, buying a car – wisdom of the crowds tends to pay off. In a lot of the things that are important to me however, it’s a lot better to move outside the herd. Investing, having an extraordinary life, reading, music, building a business, etc. are areas that I believe benefit most from looking where others (or at least the mainstream) are not. I wanted to start a blog because I wanted a voice. But what do I want to talk about? Things I see that are exceptional. Things that are off the beaten path but pretty cool. That’s what I am fanatical about. So why not talk about those things. Can’t hurt and just might be fun.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
